How is a PHONE NUMBER Chosen??

If I have an existing phone number, either another cellular number or
a prior landline, how i

How is my new cellular phone number chosen? If I have an existing
phone number, is it reserved by my prior company and then "purchased"
or something by Sprint to make it my new number? Or is it placed in a
pool used by all the companies, such as an "aging number", and then
assigned?

Does the employee enter YOUR old number, and then put in a request to
"grab" it as soon as it's release by the old company?

What if you dropped your old service a few days or a few weeks ago?
There's a possibility that it may or may not be available? Let's say
your friend had a number you wanted. Could you somehow "reserve" his
number after he dropped his service and then get that number assigned
to you?

If you know of a number that is unused for whatever reason, can you
just specify that number for your new phone? Or does the system do
some sort of check to make sure it used to be owned by you?

IOW, what's the interface to whatever system Sprint folks use to
assign a cellular number look like? Is there really a limit of four
numbers selected that a customer must choose between?

Thanks!

Mark

In <416510f6-bf8f-4e14-bb8b-2c29c8d4bf38@n20g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>, gmark
<gmark@svs.com> wrote:

> IOW, what's the interface to whatever system Sprint folks use to
> assign a cellular number look like? Is there really a limit of
> four numbers selected that a customer must choose between?

The system that's used to assign phone numbers *used* to permit
someone to sit there and find a "good" number for you. That's no
longer the case. The system will offer a phone number and the Sprint
employee can click a button to choose between another 4-5 numbers.
That's it.

If you have a phone number that's currently in use, say, on Verizon
and want that phone number to be used on a Sprint phone, then Sprint
needs to "port" that number from Verizon to Sprint. You would need to
provide all of the Verizon billing information (account holder's name,
account number, password, billing address, etc.) with Verizion in
order for Sprint to port-in that number from Verizon.

Once a phone number is ported to, in this case, Sprint and you later
cancel service with Sprint (and don't port that number to another
carrier), the phone number will be returned to the original carrier
that purchased it (in this case Verizon).

> How is my new cellular phone number chosen? If I have an existing
> phone number, is it reserved by my prior company and then
> "purchased" or something by Sprint to make it my new number? Or is
> it placed in a pool used by all the companies, such as an "aging
> number", and then assigned?

Your phone number is assigned from a pool of phone numbers that have
been purchased by the cellular company. The area code and prefix are
determined by where you plan on using the cell phone the most. If
you're porting a number from another carrier, then the Sprint employee
can either assign you a temporary phone number that matches the same
area of the porting phone number and then port your phone number over
top of it or he/she can just port the phone number up-front.